Ski touring is becoming increasingly popular among outdoor sports enthusiasts and lovers of wide open spaces. There are magnificent places, often little known, that will make this sporting experience truly unforgettable.
The Picos de Europa National Park is one of those magical places where you can combine the pleasure of sport, skiing and breathtaking, unexpected landscapes. A brief guided tour.
The Picos de Europa National Park: a wild space still preserved from human influence
I have been living for three years in Potes, in the Picos de Europa National Park. This park is the oldest of Spain's national parks. It is located in northern Spain, straddling the provinces of Asturias, Cantabria and León, approximately 350 km west of the Pyrenees, and offers a view of the Atlantic Ocean from its highest peak, the Torre de Cerredo, rising to 2,648m. The Picos de Europa National Park is characterized by its impressive limestone formations, carved into sheer peaks and extending across nearly 65,000 hectares. It is a small corner of paradise, hidden and still completely preserved from mass tourism, which has earned it the reputation of being one of the last European sanctuaries where wolves, brown bears and mountain lovers coexist.
In short, the Picos de Europa National Park is a unique destination where nature lovers and outdoor sports enthusiasts — including hikers, climbers, ski tourers and mountaineers — can feast their eyes, their legs and their arms! Ski touring: a sport for everyone, rich in learning and emotion. Given the excellent winter this year, I want to tell you about ski touring: the Picos de Europa remains a top destination for this activity. Its single cable car at Fuente Dé helps protect local wildlife and flora from the crowds found at the well-known winter ski resorts. This isolation allows us to progress through high mountain terrain, often alone in the face of unspoiled nature, in tune with our bodies and always with respect for those who call it home!
Ski touring is a complete activity that suits all skiers
Whether it's through gentle slopes perfect for sweeping descents or vertiginous summits battered by wind and covered in ice, ski touring allows us, in just a few strides, to discover the most renowned locations of this massif, such as: the Fuente Dé cirque, the Cabaña Verónica, the mythical Picu Urriellu (Naranjo de Bulnes), the Ruta del Cares, the Lakes of Covadonga, the Peña Santa... Progressing on ski touring equipment, through adventure terrain and in a raw, unspoiled environment, requires us to ski with the minimum safety equipment: avalanche beacon, shovel and probe, while keeping our senses sharp and attuned to the mountain.
Weather forecasts and various snowpack stability tests will allow us to choose the safest routes, best suited to our level and desires. In addition to teaching us to move with caution and careful thought through wild terrain, and offering us spectacular scenery, ski touring also provides powerful and unique sensations.
Alone at the summit, north face, a metre of powder and a thousand metres of descent — pure bliss!
A word to the bold...
Ski touring in the Picos de Europa